Of Mr. Gladstone, John Arthur Roebuck, a bellicose Radical—very noisy in his time—says: ‘He may be a very good chopper, but, depend upon it, he is not an English statesman.’ Of Tennyson, it is said that he loved Mr. Gladstone, but detested his policy. The late Sir James Stansfeld is reported as saying to an interviewer: ‘Mr. Gladstone’s conduct in the Cabinet was very curious. When I first joined in 1871, I naturally expected that his position was so commanding that he would be able to say, “This is my policy; accept it or not, as you like.” When Sir James Graham was examined before a committee on Admiralty administration, he was asked: “What would happen if a member of your Board did not agree with your policy?” He answered: “He would cease to be a member of my board.” I thought Mr. Gladstone would have taken the same line, but he did not. He was always profuse in his expressions of respect for his Cabinet. There is a wonderful combination in Mr. Gladstone of imperiousness and deference; in the Cabinet he would assume that he was nothing.’ In the _Nineteenth Century_ appeared a curious estimate of Mr. Gladstone by an Indian gentleman. ‘He has,’ he writes, ‘a natural prejudice, almost antipathy, to the name of Turk. His mind, in some respects, resembles that of some pious, learned, but narrow-minded priest of the middle ages; and his unreasoning prejudice against the Turk is indeed mediæval, and worthy of those dark ages of blood, belief and Quixotic chivalry. A person of such character, however graphic and sublime he may be, should not have such a great political influence on the minds of millions of his fellow-beings; he should not be at the head of a vast empire such as that of England of to-day if he cannot constrain his emotions and his ecclesiastical prejudices. He is a sublime moral leader of men; but a statesman of Mr. Gladstone’s position should be more calm, more deliberate, and should weigh his words carefully before he speaks. He should take care that his writings and speeches do not wound the feelings of millions of his fellow-subjects.’ On the defeat of the Liberal party in 1895, the _National Review_ wrote: ‘One can now appreciate the previously provoking description of Mr. Gladstone as a great Conservative force. His Irish escapade has shattered the Liberal party, made the House of Lords invulnerable, and the Church unassailable.’ Dr. Guinness Rogers wrote that Mr. Gladstone’s retirement was one of the causes of the defeat of the Liberal party. ‘It is to a large extent a measure of the enormous influence of that commanding personality. Not until the secret history of that period can be studied will it be known how tremendous was the loss which the Liberal party sustained by the withdrawal from the strife of a leader who towered head and shoulders over all his associates.’